The Way Things Were
by sadge
Summary: Narcissa, soulless or not, was a very broken girl. And Lily was a beautiful thing at her age – all the better, she had a taste for blood and vengeance, which Narcissa could appreciate in anyone, Black or not. LilyNarcissa


Narcissa was a devil, she didn't deny it; she reveled in her twisted behavior. Lily, for all that she tried to protest any such labels, was most certainly no angel. It wasn't really an act of coincidence that they fell into such behavior. More like fate.

Narcissa never hid the fact that she was a great lover of all things beautiful. She only appreciated things for their surface value. It was not precisely a flaw, just a feature that most moralists tended to frown upon. The soul, they argued, was of greater consequence. Narcissa told them they could fuck off and take their sodding souls with them. There was no use for souls in the Black family.

Lily liked souls. She collected them. She took the sad and the lonely and the deficient and put them in a little pocket where she could comfort them and pat their poor unwanted little heads to show them that she appreciated them, even if it meant no one else did. They didn't mind. At least someone took the time to love them.

Because Narcissa lacked a soul, she and Lily never crossed paths. What would Lily want from a girl who had nothing wrong? If there was nothing to break, then what could she fix?

It turned out that they had more in common than they thought. His name was James Potter.

Narcissa was a good upstanding daughter of her good upstanding parents. She liked fancy dresses; she liked money; she liked hurting people. She liked all things that the Black Family had liked for generations on end. Those who were not Black were not worthy of being liked. It was just the Way Things Were. Sirius did not follow the Way Things Were. Therefore he was an abomination to the Black Family. Therefore she hated Sirius.

Lily liked her dolls. Lily liked people who were broken. James Potter was popular; he had a good family; he was smart. In short, he was Not Broken. James Potter was everything anyone would want to be. He was the hammer which broke the lesser beings around him and sent them scurrying to Lily. To the eye of a keen observer like Lily, he was perfect. Lily did not like James. The only problem was, James liked Lily. Who really knew why; perhaps because she cleaned up after his messes.

To speak of James was to speak of Sirius; they were one person. It seemed only natural that Narcissa and Lily would come together over something as strange as mutual hate.

It was a weird first meeting. They didn't speak, they just acted. They wrought havoc and thwarted some crafty plans. They made JamesSirius' day a little bit darker. They considered it a job well done and went their separate ways. After all, there was nothing in the other to merit a second glance.

But Narcissa, soulless or not, was a very broken girl. And Lily was a beautiful thing at her age – all the better, she had a taste for blood and vengeance, which Narcissa could appreciate in anyone, Black or not.

Narcissa stopped Lily after class, caught her by the wrist and pulled her to the side of the hall. She liked to control pretty things; she liked to hold them under her thumb until they cried for release. Like Lily, she had a collection, but she kept hers tucked away in more intimate places.

It was a passionate sort of affair, because Lily did things no other way. It hurt the heart more when the loving was through, she felt, and Lily, it turns out, had a thing for pain. It was tragically beautiful, because that's how Narcissa liked it. She always appreciated beauty; the tragedy was just a bonus.

There were always empty rooms scattered around the castle where they could meet in private, and Lily did like her privacy when it came to matters of her sex life. It was almost quaint in Narcissa's mind, except she wasn't about to argue. This, too, was not specifically allowed according to the Way Things Were. The Black Family isn't really supposed to go for this sort of stuff, but Narcissa did. She really did. But if they kept to the shadows, no one would know that Narcissa, like Sirius, liked things the wrong way. She really hated Sirius, especially now that they were the same.

Narcissa loved the feel of Lily, of her hot breaths on Narcissa's cold skin. She loved how Lily was like a drug, and how she was addicted. She loved the way they would just lay together sometimes, not doing anything, hands touching and breathing in the beauty that was _them_. It would never go beyond these short school years, but the present could be a very beautiful place if one knew how to appreciate it. Lily, for her part, could care less whether or not the placement of their limbs looked dramatically alluring or their strewn hair had an artistic shape to it. She didn't care even if in truth they were nothing more than a painful and twisted ugly mess lying in each other's arms. She was fixing someone: a broken someone with a soul that, if it was even there, was so dark it was born corrupted. It had been steeping in evil in the womb. Lily loved it. Lily loved Narcissa. Sometimes Lily wasn't sure which feeling was which. But she just loved because it was in her nature to do so.

Narcissa didn't love. The Black's had never taught her how to do something that required her heart. A heart, like a soul, was an unnecessary part of human life. You could live content with your money and your power; love was another things pushed by those idiotic moralizing types. Narcissa hated the moralizing type.

At times, Lily would ask questions, those silly moralizing sorts of questions: the kind of questions that ruined a beautiful here-and-now. Narcissa would leave, because she never saw the point of that sort of thinking. But the echoes of Lily's voice would chase her down the corridors, and she was never sure whether the thoughts that haunted her after that were the product of her own mind, or a lingering influence of the mournful Lily. How was she to know if this was right or not? It felt good, didn't it? Wasn't that enough? She wanted to slap those stupid questions right out of Lily's head; slap her silly until they fell back into oblivion in each other's arms.

The Future was a very wide and open place for some people, but Narcissa knew differently. Lily may have had options, she may have had something better to look forwards to. She may have had good reason to fear giving it all up for someone like Narcissa. But Narcissa was at the height of her life right there, in that dank and damp stone cell with Lily's hands scorching her sides. She died every time Lily left, for it was just one farewell closer to Lucius. And Lucius would never – _could_ never – be to Narcissa what Lily was. Lucius was as incapable of human emotion as she was. He would never care for Narcissa just as Narcissa would never care for him. But Lily could care, she seemed to have enough love to care for the entire world, and Narcissa was a little envious. She didn't have enough love to fill a teaspoon. But she could feel something when Lily was near. She felt…

She didn't care about the Ways Things Were when Lily was around; Lily transcended familial obligations. Narcissa didn't know what this meant, but maybe it was a trace of the love Lily had in spades. Maybe saying "Fuck you" to the world was a sort of love. She wasn't sure, but Narcissa thought she could accept that sort of affection. If love was the price to pay for being near Lily, she would pay it, Lily was like nothing she had known before, and Narcissa had known a lot before she met Lily.

If it was James Potter who brought them together, it seemed only fitting that he should tear them apart as well.

Narcissa noticed Lily's affections drifting. At first she wondered if Lily's never ending supply of love had finally dried up; if the intensity of caring for Narcissa had exhausted her. She thought that she could handle that, if that was the truth. After all, she understood superficial relationships, and this was simple how they always ended. She had been foolish if she had expected more. But Lily's changing feelings towards none other than _James Potter_ took her completely by surprise.

She was _not_ supposed to fall in love with him. She was supposed to form other meaningless attachments to other meaningless people for the rest of a meaningless life. That was what was _supposed_ to happen. She couldn't move on that easily, not when Narcissa had actually maybe sorta felt _something_ for her. When would Narcissa actually feel something again? After letting a person into the dark empty place that might or might not hold a soul, can you return to a life without them? Lily had cast light in strange places, but it had not been entirely uncomfortable. Would she be blind now without her? Narcissa wasn't sure; she had no experience in this sort of stuff.

Lily didn't know why she had turned from Narcissa. She especially didn't know why she chose James, of all people. She still hated him a little for his perfection, but some of Narcissa's appreciation for unblemished figures had rubbed off on her, and the beauty of James Potter had a strange drawing power. Maybe she was just ready to move on to a relationship that didn't make her question what was right and wrong. Maybe she didn't want to cry anymore after she had left Narcissa for the night. She had been right to think that loving like she did would hurt in the end. She had wanted to fix Narcissa; she had wanted to make a change in Narcissa's life. But nothing ever changed with Narcissa. She was as heartless as the day they had met. She couldn't continue loving someone like that. James loved her, Merlin only knows why, but it was good enough for Lily. Narcissa would fade from her life, like an old photograph, colors bleeding until the features are erased and only the faint outlines remain.

So they parted ways, never looking back on what they were giving up. Narcissa told herself she didn't miss Lily, even when it was obvious that she was lying. She told herself she missed the sex; it just wasn't the same with Lucius. There was no passion. It was like fucking a block of marble. She couldn't even claim it felt good – it didn't. Lucius liked control even more than Narcissa, and he was in a better position to hold the chains in their relationship. The feel of Lucius _owning _her, of losing what little freedom she had enjoyed, was suffocating.

With Lily, there had been no top and bottom. There had just been two girls and a whole lot of feelings she wouldn't be getting anymore. If she had been the type to cry over failed lovers, she would have. Instead she went on with life.

Lily moved in with James, and for once it was not a question of ownership or broken souls. It was simply a love which asked for nothing in return, so Lily, unsure of whether or not this would ever happen again, or even if this sort of thing happened at all for most people, took her chances and committed to James. They were engaged soon after. Narcissa wasn't even informed.

Narcissa had her ways of finding out, though. The night before the wedding, she found herself at Lily's door, silently begging the girl to realize her mistake. Idly, Narcissa wondered if James could do all the things she could. She knew all the things Lily liked; she knew the ways to make her scream and cry with pleasure; she knew how to draw a radiant smile from a sullen mood. She wondered if Lily missed the sex at all, or if James touched her in ways Narcissa had never dreamed of. It's possible; he does have extra equipment after all, she thought. It seemed like an unfair advantage to her.

But somehow, despite the fact that Narcissa hadn't announced her presence, Lily knew she was out there, desolately sitting on the front steps. Looking up at her face, through an unfamiliar curtain of grief and self-loathing, Narcissa wanted to hurt her. She wanted Lily to feel the strange emotions she was experiencing. How could she come into Narcissa's life and mess everything up, and then just leave again? Narcissa had always thought Lily was supposed to be the good one out of the two of them. She reached up to pull Lily in for a kiss, and Lily let her. Their lips met and Narcissa was sure she was drowning. Could this be real?

Did she really care if it wasn't?

Lily let the kiss end and then told Narcissa to leave. Their time together was over and done. It was nice but now it's through. Please go home.

Narcissa, shocked at the response, did as she was asked. She didn't think Lily would turn her away – not after the kiss. Not after she had seen what marriage to Potter meant she was giving up. She supposed that to Lily there was not much of a sacrifice, and it really hurt her non-existent heart. She had not expected to feel pain like this. She didn't have a heart to break or a soul to redeem, so why did she care? What was it about Lily that had changed everything?

Fuck her, she thought, _Fuck her._ Narcissa didn't need Lily; Narcissa needed no one. Narcissa needed her money and her power and her beauty. Lucius could give her that; Lucius could give her everything. All Lily was good for was a quick screw, and she would never need _that_ again. Lucius was always there, for her _every_ need. And hell, once she stopped comparing Lucius to Lily, things weren't so bad. There were a lot of things he could do that Lily would _never_ have been capable of. So take _that_, fucking bitch.

Then Lily had to go and get pregnant. Narcissa feared she might have a relapse, if it weren't for the fact that she was firmly enforcing adherence to the policy of _I don't care_. She went out and bought a dress that Lily would never have been able to afford and got impressively drunk and convinced herself that she had the best sex of her life that night, when in truth she couldn't remember a single thing about it except it involved Lucius. Or at least she hoped so.

A few months later she discovered she was pregnant too. The dress she bought in her fury over Lily would no longer fit. Her mother was so happy – _grandchildren_. Lucius could care less, except for the fact that it marked her as irreversibly _his_. She tried not to think, and became overly excited at the thought of all the shopping she would have to look forward to as an alien creature grew in her body.

Lily gave birth amid a cloud of terror and destruction and Narcissa almost had the compassion to pity her. _Almost_. Instead she turned to her own rapidly expanding abdomen and told the child within that if it ever wanted to survive this world it would kill its heart before birth. She supposed her mother had told her the same from the womb, as had her mother before her. Mothers are always looking out for these stupid creatures called children. But as much as she had vowed that affection would never darken her doorway again, there was a strange compulsion within her to _care_ in some way for this baby. Was she supposed to love something she had never wanted in the first place?

Lily would, she thought.

Narcissa gave birth a few months later. Lucius named the child Draco and Narcissa cried for the first time in her life. _This_ is what life had come to: lonely, loveless, without even the child she had carried – her only companion for nine months – to call her own. She wanted to die; she wanted Lily to kiss her pain away like she used to; she wanted…she wanted her baby. If Lily wasn't going to love her anymore, and Lucius was never going to feel anything towards her, then she might as well cling to the only thing that she still had a chance with.

Then Lily died. Narcissa tried very hard to think that she had it brought it upon herself. She tried very hard to scorn this woman who dared to defy the growing darkness. She tried, but it wasn't enough. All she could think was that Lily – beautiful, loving, _living_ Lily – was dead. The fucking idiot had loved even though it killed her. She had loved everyone and everything though it had destroyed her, but the bitch wouldn't love _her_. Lily had loved _Potter's_ child more than her. Stupid fucking James, stupid fucking Sirius, stupid fucking Dumbledore and Lucius and Voldemort and Harry and…and…stupid fucking _everything_…

She tucked a memory of Lily into her most secret place, somewhere beneath her skin between her ribs, where her heart belonged. It was just she and Draco now. Narcissa knew that this _stupid baby_, who had become the _savior_ of the _world_, had meant more to Lily than anything on earth, and now she wouldn't be able to love him anymore. Perhaps Narcissa could do the same; perhaps she could love Draco like Lily loved Harry. She could definitely try…for Lily.

Then she gathered herself together and did her best to say goodbye to the woman who had meant more than money and power to her, who had meant more than the Way Things Were.


End file.
